An Unexpected Visit
by Leovwin
Summary: What could come from an unexpected visit of the Marauders? Well, you know the Marauders...


All characters and everything you might recognize belongs to J. K. Rowling.

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"Lily! Lily, dear!" her mother called from the living room.

Lily only heard her mother's call only by chance as she had just turned off the annoyingly loud electric mixer.

"What is it, mom?"

"Come over here, will you?"

What was it now? Lily put down the spoon and washed her hands. She didn't want to stain doors and walls with cake batter.

"So?" she asked, as she entered the living room and saw her mother, peering out the window, beckoning her over.

"Do you know these people?" she asked and pointed at a group of boys standing in front of their garden fence.

Lily stared. There were two tall black haired boys, one holding the other in a headlock, one boy with a soft smile on his lips and light brown hair and a small, chubby boy, who was dwarfed by the other three and chuckling slightly at his friends' antics. Lily gulped as the taller boys let go of another and made their way to the front door, the other two right behind them.

"Damn."

The doorbell rang.

"Lily?" her mother asked tentatively, but moved to open the door without waiting for an answer.

Lily was too deep in thought. What had the four Marauders waiting on her doorstep? Had they come to beat Severus up and decided to pay her a visit afterwards? Not that she cared for the boy anymore.

Her mother had opened the door and she heard James' voice all charming and honey. Lily often had wondered if something was wrong with her, because she wasn't at all attracted to James' voice or much praised body, especially his hair, or his charms, while all the other girls seemed to be head over heels for him. The last two months had shown her however, that she was after all perfectly normal. She had noticed that, no matter how hard she struggled against it, she was falling for him - falling for him every day a bit more. How she hated herself for this weakness and how she hated him for being so damn attractive.

"Mrs. Evans, I assume? We wanted to pay Lily a visit. We're friends from school. Is she at home?"

Her mother must have nodded. "Lily, dear, you have visitors!" she called.

Quite unnecessary to mention, that there were visitors, as they both had seen the boys linger outside already. Deliberately slow Lily made her way to the front door. This couldn't end well.

"Lily-Flower!" Sirius called loudly as soon as she came into view. Enthusiastically he bounced towards her and flung his long arms around her in a bone crashing hug.

Lily just stood there nonplussed. What was this all about? She hugged some of her friends in greeting, but Sirius definitely wasn't one of them. He wasn't even her friend to cry out loud. She instantly grew suspicious.

"Come in, come in," her mother bustled around.

"Don't kill her, mate," Remus cautioned and laid a hand on Sirius' shoulder to pull him away as he moved past them in the hallway, smiling at Lily in greeting. Sirius grinned like a loon.

"Wouldn't kill our Lily-Flower, now, would I?" he answered, but took a step back to look her up and down.

She massaged her ribcage and glared at him and his face-splitting grin. " . .Here?" Lily finally asked irritated still slightly out of breath from Sirius' hug and her own confusion.

But her mother interfered: "Why don't you take a seat? Do you want tea? Lily's just baking a cake, you know. If I'd known you'd come, I'd…" She hurried off into the kitchen.

Lily folded her arms in front of her chest and tapped her foot, still waiting for an explanation.

"Well, how are you, Lily? We didn't know what to do, so we thought, we could pay you a visit." James' dazzling smile took her breath away; she didn't even mind the obvious lie. She dug her fingernails into the soft flesh of her arm. _Focus_

A door opened upstairs before she had time to find her voice again. "Is this Vernon, mother? I heard the bell!" Petunia called and came down the stairs. She stopped half-way down as she saw the visitors. Her face contorted into a mask of such clear displeasure Lily wouldn't have thought possible. Lily looked from her sister to the boys and back. They were dressed perfectly normal (perfectly muggle normal), thank God. Was it just that they obviously where there for Lily's sake, that Petunia took an instant dislike?

Sirius let out a low wolf-whistle. Lily shot him a warning glance, though she herself couldn't hide a small smile at her sister's appearance. She was only half way through with her make-up for her evening with Vernon. One eye was painted in blue eye shadow, the other was still perfectly normal and she was wearing a pink dressing gown. Thankfully she didn't hear the whistle.

"No, Tuney, guess what, there are people, who spend time with me at their own free will," Lily snapped at her sister.

"Of course, freaks need to stick together. Now if you would excuse me, I actually have a date to get ready for with a perfectly decent man you could only dream of," she snapped back, before she stuck her nose in the air, turned and ran back upstairs.

Lily just stared after her open mouthed. "Yeah, I could only dream of your date in my nightmares, don't worry," she whispered after her with an incredulous look on her face.

"Your sister?" Peter asked sympathetic.

"Who'd wanna date a horse?" Sirius asked at the same time, drowning out Peter, and Remus hissed "Sirius" in warning.

Lily snickered. "A walrus. I guess the four of you could squeeze in the space he alone occupies on the couch. He sports a mustache and he's only a few years older than we are! A mustache!"

She looked at four faces concentrated on the image she had just created in her heads.

James actually wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I don't want to imagine … in bed … if she suffocates, you know he's guilty … urgh." He shuddered visibly as did the others.

Lily nodded and suddenly felt quite exhausted. She had rowed with her sister far too often this summer and Vernon had been a topic more often than not. "Come along then, before any of us get sick with these images. Don't touch anything, no matter how strange it may look. Don't even think about it, Black, all right? If anything breaks, you'll leave immediately and never come back, understand me?" she ordered and looked at them intently, before leading them into the sitting room.

They all nodded. Maybe Sirius nodded a bit too eager. They all seated themselves at the table. While serving the tea Lily introduced them to her mother.

When she returned the tea pod to the stove in the kitchen, her mother accompanied her. "You never told me of those friends of yours," she confronted her daughter.

"Correctly speaking, they're not even my friends. I don't have the slightest idea, why they came," Lily corrected her in earnest, but her mother seemed not to hear her.

"I don't know how you can stand to be around them ever so often – as friends I mean. Especially the Potter boy is an extremely fit fellow. Makes even my knees go weak on my old days with that smile of his."

"Mum!" Lily screamed exasperated. This wasn't happening. Her mother didn't just swoon over James Potter. She couldn't believe this.

"But don't tell your father. He might not be too keen on hearing this," she hushed Lily.

Someone coughed, shocking Lily. "May I help with something?" Sirius poked his head around the doorframe to the kitchen.

"Pardon me? – Sirius Black wanting to help in the kitchen? Mum, I think you allowed imposters in your house," Lily mocked him to have time to recover from her furious blush and followed him back into the sitting room. She would happily forego further conversation about how hot James was.

"Well, can I leave you boys alone for 10 minutes and trust you not to blow up the house, when I'm not looking? I've a cake to finish," she told them regretfully. There was always a sense of foreboding when these four were sitting quietly at a table when no meal was served.

"Don't worry, Lily. If you allow me to tie those two to their chairs, no harm will be done," Remus reassured her with a perfectly friendly smile nodding to Sirius and James, who protested with a loud "Oi!" and two smacks on their friend's head.

Lily just rolled her eyes and went back into the kitchen. She didn't stay alone there for long of course. She heard footsteps, but was rather shocked to find the voice emanating from a spot much closer to her than she had anticipated.

"Mind me helping you, Lily?" James murmured in her ear, sending goosebumps down the length of her body. Damn him and his attractive voice. She wasn't ready to give in to her feelings completely, yet. She would get over this. Just not now which was quite the problem considering his closeness. Suddenly their shoulders touched. The jolt the touch sent trough her body reached her fingertips and she dropped the milk can she was just holding. It made contact with the floor and spilled milk everywhere.

"Damn!" she cursed.

"Shit" he swore.

She closed her eyes to regain her composure. It wasn't helping anyone that her hands were shaking uncontrollably. She rubbed her temples desperately. He was after all just a boy. Why was this being so difficult? When she opened her eyes again, he had already cleaned up the mess, by magic no doubt.

"I'm glad you did that. Mum forbade me to use magic in the kitchen," she admitted to distract him from the reason why she had dropped the milk in the first place.

"She did?" he asked, "Why?"

"She still isn't comfortable with magic and thinking about eating something, which had been in contact with magic is something she'd rather avoid."

"Oh, I see."

"So, as you committed the crime, you'll take responsibility for it. But as my mother is rather smitten with you, there'll be no harm done, I guess."

"Rather smitten with me? How can you resist my charm, if your mother can't?" he joked and Lily suddenly felt guilty. Had she not tortured the poor boy long enough already (or herself)? Maybe it had been denial, maybe not that she had always considered his chase of her a kind of joke, something he would do for a dare. It had been easier to turn him down every time if she considered it a joke. But over the years he had somewhat matured, he showed more of himself to the public eye, without hiding behind a mask of arrogance and cockiness. Somehow, when he asked her out these days, it sounded dead honest and she couldn't imagine him going on with the chase just for the fun of it.  
It was pity that made her say the following. At least, that was, what she told herself: "Who said I could resist?"

He looked at her intently and she blushed crimson under his curious gaze. "Sorry, what was that? Didn't catch that."

"You heard me just fine," she snapped. She didn't like it when people played dumb with her, most importantly when she didn't have the guts to say that again.

"You just told me you could not resist, you, the girl I chased for years only to be rejected every single time? Silly me, but I don't see the logic here. Lily?" He shook his head unbelievingly.

"I didn't admit anything," she mumbled, suddenly shocked by her former boldness.

"Oh yes, Lily, I think you did!" he whispered back in a low voice that made her neck tingle. He closed the distance between them and for the first time she didn't stop him in the attempt to kiss her.

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I know it's a strage end, but bear with my 'ending-competences'.


End file.
